Gill tips his hat to the entire India side in series aftermath and calls them ‘a gun team, and we have gun players’
In order to tie the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series, India’s skipper Shubman Gill stated that his team was “pretty confident” of capturing the final four wickets on the final morning at The Oval.
The game continued into the fifth day due to late rain on the fourth day, with India needing four wickets and England needing 35 runs. To complete an incredible victory, Mohammed Siraj won three of the four.
“Yeah, we were pretty confident,” Gill said at the post-match presentation. “Even yesterday, we knew that they [England] are a little bit under pressure. We just wanted to make sure that they’re feeling the pressure throughout. Pressure makes everyone do things that they don’t want to, and we just wanted to make sure that they’re feeling the pressure throughout.
“I think the way both the teams played in the entire series, every day coming on day four, day five, and never really knowing which team is going to win… it shows that both the teams came up with their A game and very happy to get over the line in this one.”
Siraj and Prasidh Krishna collaborated to deny Jamie Smith and the tail any relief, despite Joe Root’s assertion that England would profit from the deployment of a heavy roller on the fifth morning.
“When bowlers like Siraj and Prasidh are bowling like that then 35 runs is also too much,” Gill said at the post-match press conference. “As a batsman, you are under pressure as you feel the ball is doing something and it takes just one ball. And that is what we were reminding them about frequently. If the conditions are like this and the momentum is with you, then 30-35 runs is enough, then you know it is a matter of one or two balls falling in the right place and the game will get over there and then.”
Gill said that India never thought about taking the second new ball, considering the movement both his strike bowlers had been getting since day four. “Also, we had the wicket-taking option on this wicket,” Gill said. “If they had to make the runs, they would need to score boundaries. We knew they were under pressure because in such a position the batting team is under pressure because it is matter of one ball.”
After being the final player out of the Lord’s Test last month, Siraj was devastated. He ended the match with the ball this time, uprooting Gus Atkinson’s off-stump with a precise yorker. Siraj made a significant contribution, taking five wickets in his 30.1 overs in the fourth innings.
“Yes, definitely, he’s a captain’s dream”, Gill said of Siraj. “Coming in five Test matches, every ball, every spell that he bowled gave his all out, and every captain, every team wants a player like him. We are very fortunate to have him in our team.”
“This series was very important for us because the kind of maturity every player would feel [at] the end of the series would really help us in the long run in this WTC cycle,” Gill said.
Asked if he would have felt the same had England chased the target, Gill admitted that his “feelings would definitely be slightly different”.
Many issues were raised before Gill’s India arrived in the UK in June, including whether his team had the manpower and expertise to take on Ben Stokes’ team. India leaves with the joint series two months later. Gill gave head coach Gautam Gambhir credit for boosting the team’s self-esteem.
“At the start of the series Gauti bhai [Gambhir] said: ‘yes, we are a young team, but we don’t want to be looked as a young team; we want to be looked as a gun team’. And the way we played it today showed us that why we are a gun team, and we have gun players like him [Siraj] in our team and that’s what makes this team so special.”